Server Version#: 1.42.2.10156 Hello. I’ve noticed the plex movie posters I’ve manually selected in edit > poster are reverting back overnight. After finding threads with the same issue, I decided to follow recommendations and use local posters instead, following the local media guide: I placed th…

Looks like there is some 3rd party automated tool making calls to your server. Are you using Kometa by any chance? If so please remove that from the equation before trying to troubleshoot further.

Something happened at 3:18 am. Jan 10, 2026 03:18:42.894 [6176] DEBUG - [Req#68662b] Doing expensive tags write for ‘A Bridge Too Far’ because something changed. This matches the XML updatedAt=“1768033123”

What kind of storage is drive S: ? If it’s not internally in the Plex server machine, ensure that you don’t enable “Empty trash automatically after every scan” in the server settings.

The xml clearly says <Field locked="1" name="thumb"/> so its locked. Have you attempted plex dance (all steps) ? That is the easy way to clear the lock. There are more advanced ways to do this but lets confirm this works before attempting anything else.

The S drive is an external NAS. The “empty trash” setting is disabled.

I tested the plex dance on one of the films with the locked poster but the poster locked immediately after reappearing in my library.

I plex danced two movie folders & I’ve attached a screenshot of both file paths, along with the server logs. A Bridge Too Far (1977) has a local poster in the same folder and this is what happened when I added it back & ran a library scan: it appeared with a random poster > I watched it change to m…

Thanks, I’ll take a look at the logs later. Can you confirm exactly how you have named the local asset for the poster ? Also, could there be embedded artwork in the your files and is prefer local metadata enabled ?

One more settings question. In your Server Settings > Library is Run a partial scan when changes are detected checked or not? Can you also check on the drive’s health from your NAS?

For A Bridge Too Far, I originally had it named poster.jpg. BigWheel commented that I could try changing it to match the movie file name to see if that helped anything (it didn’t) I have prefer local metadata disabled at the moment. I’ve tested this poster issue with it enabled and disabled, with t…

Plex local posters not applying to media

Plex Media Server

dokuro January 11, 2026, 10:24pm 17

Would you mind doing the plex dance again and afterwards attach the server logs so we can take a look.

Also, could you provide a screenshot of the files on disk so we can see them?

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Plex local posters not applying to media

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